U.S. Legislation Aims to Ban Plastic Guns Metal Detectors Can’t Detect

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/10/u-s-legislation-aims-to-ban-plastic-guns/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

by laurentsabbah • 11 years ago

16 50 11 years ago

techcrunch.com

InclinedPlane• 11 years ago

I am fairly certain this already exists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undetectable_Firearms_Act

unwind• 11 years ago

Interesting to note that the required 3.7 oz converts to roughly 100 grams. Quite a lot of mass to impose on gun designs, I imagine.

I don't have any experience with gun-smithing so I don't know how much metal is strictly technically required, but I imagine it to be less or the legislature wouldn't be necessary to begin with, of course. Also, the minimum metal mass is probably a moving target (heh).

hga7• 11 years ago

Eh, if you like you hand(s), you really want a fair amount of mass so it's just not your hand, arm, etc. providing the inertia resisting recoil. Also makes a difference for followup shots.

But there is a niche for the single shot or so derringer, or quasi "zip guns" like the Defense Distributed or original Liberators. Just not my kind of thing, I carry a full albeit aluminium alloy frame, 4 inch barrel M1911 that weights 1.75 pounds empty, which is very much at the other end of the spectrum except for being narrow, which is important for concealablity.

DanielBMarkham2• 11 years ago

Yes, but whether it's covered or not doesn't matter, because just like we have security theater, we have security politics. The important thing isn't enacting a new law to address a need; the important thing is to find a cause that energizes enough of your base to vote and then appear to be doing something.

Bonus points if the thing you're trying to do has no chance of being enacted. If you get a lot of attention and appear to be doing the right things to the right folks? You can support actions that you personally believe would be dangerous to the republic. Your personal feelings or the end result of what you're supporting don't really matter.

Apologies for the cynicism, but people should know that the political calculus plays out in this fashion. Perhaps that's the situation in this case, perhaps not. The political calculus is still what it is and we should acknowledge it.

Vivtek• 11 years ago

The ancient art of bullshitocracy.

x5n1• 11 years ago

Since this is such a big problem, I think we should do something about it immediately. Just like powdered alcohol. /s

dylanjermiah• 11 years ago

And so begins the underground market for plastic weaponry.

IanDrake• 11 years ago

Aren't bullets still made of metal?

Shivetya• 11 years ago

I doubt they would have to be, even a low powered non metal gun would provide an attacker with a significant advantage and if used on an airplane it would not take much to breech the hull. As for encounters on the ground I am pretty sure drones are past the point of threat that plastic guns have.

I would think resins, ceramics, and some composites, would be sufficient for creating a projectile. Still like the article states, only those who wish to obey the law would be affected

LyndsySimon• 11 years ago

if used on an airplane it would not take much to breech the hull

This is a myth. There are already holes in an aircraft's hull - shooting through one at altitude would make a hissing sound, and you could plug it with your finger if it annoyed you too bad.

I would think resins, ceramics, and some composites, would be sufficient for creating a projectile

The problem isn't so much the projectile, as it is the cartridge case, primer, and the operating components.

Still like the article states, only those who wish to obey the law would be affected

Like all gun laws - or laws in general :)

megaman22• 11 years ago

I can imagine a shotgun shell using ceramic pellets (probably with non-spheroid polygonal shapes, for extra damage). The shell base could be a problem, I'm not familiar with what you could use similar to brass to withstand the gasses and form a seal at the breech. Primers are such a tiny amount of metal, I don't think they would get picked up - I have more metal in the screws from when I broke my foot.

ck2• 11 years ago

TSA already misses full metal guns and in some airports guns are completely legal in the USA.

Why even pretend to have gun laws in this country.

But I'll tell you what, we better make mental health care available like going to the supermarket and without stigma in our society or one day there is going to be a mass-murder anniversary for every day of the year.

wtbob• 11 years ago

TSA already misses full metal guns and in some airports guns are completely legal in the USA.

Outside the 'security' cordon, yes. Why not?

Why even pretend to have gun laws in this country.

Why indeed? They're almost as bad as the drug laws. It's not whether folks are high or carrying weapons which matters, or should be illegal; it's what they do while high or with those weapons which matters.

eximius• 11 years ago

No, there was a study where TSA sent undercover agents through security with real guns and got through some absurd amount like 97% of the time.

mason240• 11 years ago

But I'll tell you what, we better make mental health care available like going to the supermarket and without stigma in our society or one day there is going to be a mass-murder anniversary for every day of the year.

Implying that anyone who needs mental health care is going to go on a murder spree is a great way to break that stigma.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

I believe OP is only implying that those who end up going on murder sprees are in need of mental health care and that it could have prevented them from going on such sprees.

imgabe• 11 years ago

"All mass-murderers would have benefited from mental health care" does not imply "All people who could benefit from mental health care will be mass murderers"

This is where we could benefit from making formal logic a mandatory requirement in schools.

escherize• 11 years ago

So, would this make 3d-printing files of these plastic guns illegal too?

I guess some orientations of bits are already illegal. Is there a(n automated) way to check if a file is illegal?

zero_iq• 11 years ago

For a moment there I thought 'n automated' was some kind of obscure complexity class I'd never heard of :)

Lawtonfogle• 11 years ago

There are. The simplest is to have a database of file hashes and compare. Further methods wouldn't likely apply to the 3d printing files because they tend to be specialized around images (making it so that resizing the image, changing the format, or even changing pixels does not defeat the detector), but it would be possible to create new systems that could detect the 3d printing files even after some effort has been made to obscure them.

That said, it is and always has been whack a mole, with each side overcoming the advancements of the other only to have their own advancements outdone.

jcromartie• 11 years ago

So then the people who would otherwise use plastic guns to get past metal detectors would say "oh, well those are illegal now, I'd better not."

brasky• 11 years ago

Yeah but now these lawmakers get to pat themselves on the back for doing absolutely nothing.

viraptor2• 11 years ago

Depends what was the intended use for the law. It's not always about enforcing it on the spot. Take another example - declaring you never joined a war on some visa applications. Of course they're not going to check that. But if it ever comes up and is discovered for some (un)related reason, you're out without further discussion.

Same can be applied here. Found to have one during some checks? You're charged.

reader5000• 11 years ago

Out of all the nra-crowd's memes this is by far the dumbest.

talmand• 11 years ago

How is that?

whistlecrackers• 11 years ago

Care to explain why you feel this way?

RyJones3• 11 years ago

These "plastic or otherwise undetectable" guns are already illegal and have been for decades, since GLOCK and some yellow journalism put the fear in Congress around the time Lethal Weapon came out.

sandyarmstrong• 11 years ago

Did Lethal Weapon have plastic firearms? My first thought was In the Line of Fire.

hga7• 11 years ago

I'm sure there was some genuine fear, e.g. I'm thinking about NY Republican gun grabber Peter King, who after fellow Representative Gabby Giffords was shot (with a Glock...) proposed a law that would create a floating, 1,000 foot bubble around important people like him in which it would be illegal for normal people like us to possess a gun (!).

But like what this discussion is about, there's a strong pattern by the serious gun grabbers to try to ban anything new, be it the first wildly successful polymer frame handgun (the Glock of course has a steel slide and barrel, but the original proposal was to ban it despite it being easy to detect), or these newfangled printed guns.

blisterpeanuts2• 11 years ago

The Techcrunch piece links to the original article[1], which provides more information. Rep. Steve Israel is a gun control crusader from way back, as is the Connecticut delegation and a few others. But the ban he proposes, obviously, won't stop anyone from printing a weapon and smuggling it onto a flight; it's just more so-called security theater, intended to assuage the anti-gun segment of the electorate and reassure air travelers that they are still going to be safe.

In my opinion, the only true way to ensure air security is to arm the pilots and plant more armed Air Marshals on flights.

Banning particular types of objects from being 3-D printed seems like an exercise in futility at best, and instills a false sense of security at worst.

1. http://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/244319-dems-move-t...

CapitalistCartr• 11 years ago

We haven't had a successful hijacking since 9/11, in spite of the TSA being grossly incompetent and ineffectual. The terrorists aren't chomping at the bit. The current system of aware passengers, Air Marshals, and reinforced doors is doing the job. Mostly the passengers. We need regulation of 3-D printers like we need regulation of flower arrangers. Bureaucracy, the fear that somewhere someone is doing something without permission.

hga7• 11 years ago

We haven't had a really successful hijacking since the passengers on Flight 93 heard what was happened with the other 3 and realized the rules of the game had been changed. As others have noted, this has to rate as one of the shortest effective periods for a terrorist gambit, only a couple of hours.

blisterpeanuts2• 11 years ago

Agreed. I believe there are two major threats to air safety, neither of which has been sufficiently addressed.

1. crazy pilot scenario - as illustrated recently by Germanwings Flight 9525. All we can do is make sure one pilot can't lock out the other pilot, and screen more carefully for mental illness. There's no room for political correctness and fairness in this picture; someone with depression and suicidal tendencies, as this 9525 pilot was known to have, should never be in the cockpit, period full stop.

2. Stinger scenario - one man with a shoulder launched anti-aircraft weapon could take down a jet liner. The world is flooded with these weapons and it's just a matter of time. Someone tried to take down an Israeli passenger jet in Sinai a few years ago, but fortunately missed. It seems unlikely in the U.S. but think of the thousands of airports all over the Middle East, Africa, central Asia, etc. It's bound to happen sooner or later, unfortunately. The only solution is to install defensive systems on jets, an expensive necessity in today's world.

JonFish852• 11 years ago

So if they're going to ban liquids & gels over 3oz, why don't they ban plastics over a certain volume? At least be consistent. Detecting it might be a bit tricky and would require a pat-down, probably, but I'm sure in the name of "safety", that can be dealt with.

thfuran• 11 years ago

Banning plastics over a certain volume is roughly equivalent to banning objects over that volume. I really don't want a policy adopted simply because it is consistent with pre-existing asinine policies.

JonFish852• 11 years ago

I completely agree--I was basically trying to illustrate the absurdity of that method of "security".

U.S. Legislation Aims to Ban Plastic Guns Metal Detectors Can’t Detect

Related Stories